Are Melbourne Swans fans big losers in Foxtel deal?

[royboy42]

C7!!!! Talk about backsliding..

[Norris Lurker]

Media release & first 6 weeks broadcast schedule is here.

A deal was always going to happen - anyone who thought there was any chance of all 8 games on FTA was kidding themselves. Easy for me to say because I have Pay-TV, but most of the deal looks good. Getting Friday nights live in Sydney is a big plus after having had 9:30 pay-TV telecasts for the last 5 years.

Other than Friday nights, where Fox will broadcast live in NSW & Queensland, Fox Sports will show the same games live everywhere. So on several occasions (differing in different cities), games will be shown concurrently on FTA and Fox while other games won't be shown at all until much later.
For example, in Sydney on Sunday afternoon in round 3, the Sydney v Brisbane game will be shown live on both Ch 7 and Fox Sports; but the Melbourne v Geelong game won't be shown in Sydney until after the twilight game at the earliest.

Maybe some typos in the broadcast guide, but there seem to be some fixture changes. My fixture has the round 6 Kangaroos v Sydney game at Telstra Dome, but the broadcast guide has it at Carrara. And according to the broadcast guide, Sydney v Melbourne in round 5 has been moved from the SCG to the Gabba - WTF???
And the WA derby in round 3 is also at the Gabba. Again, WTF??????

[Damien]

Originally posted by SimonH
We don't have access to Friday night on FTA in Sydney. Ever. And FTA is what the argument's all about. Even worse, the broadcast schedule shows that C7 isn't even going to promise to start it 'til 11:30pm!

I'm sorry, but I think it's a myth that there is a substantial population of people out there who are so in love with union or league that they will pay money to subscribe to pay TV or go to the pub just to watch their chosen sport; yet they will be converted to Aussie rules by a casual viewing of AFL if their/the bar-tender's hand happens to stray on the remote. Even if there were, knowing nothing about AFL, they wouldn't know or care less whether the game on pay TV was live or substantially delayed, anyway.

Our target market is people who have some level of interest in sport generally, but are not obsessive league or union fans. Sure, Swans' matches are the principal method of converting them, but once they have some Swans-based interest, there needs to be broad coverage of the game to encourage them to take their commitment further (i.e. so they actually know a Roo from a Tiger, don't applaud behinds, etc).

My argument isn't about FTA at all, it is about greater access to live matches, which this deal gives us.

Live Friday night football on FTA was never going to happen, it would have ended up on C31 and a court case to go with it.

Sydney sports fans are not adverse to Foxtel, like I said, to watch almost anything they have to have it or have access to it.

For years, you couldn't even mates over to your place to watch Friday night footy, I can do this from this year, it is a massive inroad and I can't see how it is a negative.

Sydney barely deserves AFL FTA coverage based on the ratings over the past 5 years, so to finally get a deal that gives access to more than we ever had is great and great for the game.

[robbieando]

2 of our 1pm Sunday games will shown into Melbourne on Replay by Channel 7 at 10.30pm Sunday in full (both of the games from Canberra). So Swans fans in Melbourne will miss FTA coverage of 5 of the 7 Sunday 1pm games.

[Damien]

Originally posted by Norris Lurker
Media release & first 6 weeks broadcast schedule is here.

According to that guide, when there are no Swans matches on a Saturday night. Fox will carry both their match, and the Channel 10 match live into NSW and QLD. Which is bloody fantastic!

[Layby]

Great result, could not have hoped for better.

If you cannot afford foxtel, get off your butt and go to a pub, club or church hall.

At long last live friday and saturday night footy in NSW.

[Norris Lurker]

In Sydney, using the first 6 weeks as an example and comparing to last year:

Round 1
Friday - Melbourne v St Kilda (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Gain for Fox, no change FTA.
Saturday afternoon - Kangaroos v Collingwood (live FTA). No change.
Saturday afternoon - Fremantle v Port Adelaide (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - Sydney v West Coast (7:30 FTA). No change.
Saturday night - Brisbane v Hawthorn (live Fox). No change.
Sunday 1pm - Adelaide v Essendon (live Fox). Fox gain, FTA loss.
Sunday 2pm - Western Bulldogs v Geelong (live FTA). FTA gain, Fox loss.
Sunday 5pm - Carlton v Richmond (live Fox). Fox gain. FTA lose 11pm 2-hour replay.
Summary - Other than Sunday game swap, FTA only loss is 11pm replay. Fox gains live Friday night and Sunday twilight.

Round 2
Thursday - Brisbane v St Kilda (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Gain for Fox, no change FTA.
Saturday afternoon - Richmond v Sydney (live FTA and Fox). Gain for Fox, no change FTA.
Saturday night - Geelong v Carlton (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - West Coast v Collingwood (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Fox gain, no change FTA.
Sunday 1pm - Port Adelaide v Kangaroos (live Fox). Fox gain, FTA loss.
Sunday 2pm - Essendon v Fremantle (live FTA). FTA gain, Fox loss.
Sunday 5pm - Western Bulldogs v Adelaide (live Fox). Fox gain. FTA lose 11pm 2-hour replay.
Monday 2pm - Hawthorn v Melbourne (live FTA). FTA gain, Fox loss.
Summary - Other than the Sunday game swap, FTA's only loss is the late replay of Bulldogs v Adelaide. But FTA gains here, showing games on both Saturday and Monday afternoon, previously only had 1.

Round 3
Friday night - Collingwood v Richmond (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Gain Fox, no change FTA.
Saturday afternoon - Carlton v Essendon (live FTA). No change.
Saturday afternoon - Port Adelaide v Adelaide (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - Fremantle v West Coast (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - St Kilda v Western Bulldogs (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Fox gain, no change FTA.
Sunday 1pm - Sydney v Brisbane (live FTA and Fox). Fox gain. No change FTA.
Sunday 2pm - Melbourne v Geelong (no coverage). Fox loss.
Sunday 5pm - Kangaroos v Hawthorn (live Fox). Fox gain. FTA lose 11pm 2-hour replay.
Summary - FTA unchanged except losing late highlights of Kangaroos v Hawthorn. Pay gains live Friday and Saturday nights plus parallel Sydney v Brisbane but loses Melbourne v Geelong which is now not shown.

Round 4
Friday night - Richmond v Western Bulldogs (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Fox gain. No change FTA.
Saturday afternoon - Collingwood v Port Adelaide (live FTA). No change.
Saturday afternoon - St Kilda v Essendon (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - Adelaide v Sydney (live FTA). No change.
Saturday night - Kangaroos v Brisbane (live Fox). No change.
Sunday 1pm - Hawthorn v Geelong (live Fox). Fox gain. FTA loss.
Sunday 2pm - Melbourne v Fremantle (live FTA). FTA gain, from 11pm 2-hour replay to live. No change Fox.
Sunday 4:30pm - West Coast v Carlton (live Fox). No change.
Summary - FTA's loses Hawthorn v Geelong, partly offset by increased coverage of Melbourne v Fremantle. Fox gains live Friday night and Sunday 1pm games.

Round 5
Wednesday - Essendon v Collingwood (live FTA). No change.
Friday - Port Adelaide v St Kilda (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Fox gain. No change FTA.
Saturday afternoon - Richmond v West Coast (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - Sydney v Melbourne (7:30 FTA). No change.
Saturday night - Carlton v Brisbane (live Fox). No change.
Sunday 1pm - Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs (live Fox). Fox gain, FTA loss.
Sunday 2pm - Geelong v Kangaroos (live FTA). FTA gain, from 11pm 2-hour replay to live. No change Fox.
Sunday 4:30pm - Fremantle v Adelaide (live Fox); No change.
Summary - FTA's loses Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs, partly offset by increased coverage of Geelong v Kangaroos. Fox gains live Friday night and Sunday 1pm games.

Round 6
Friday - St Kilda v Carlton (live Fox, 10:30 FTA). Fox gain. No change FTA.
Saturday afternoon - Essendon v Hawthorn (live FTA). No change.
Saturday afternoon - West Coast v Western Bulldogs (live Fox). No change.
Saturday night - Kangaroos v Sydney (live FTA and Fox). Fox gain, no change FTA.
Saturday night - Adelaide v Collingwood (no coverage). Fox loss, no change FTA.
Sunday 1pm - Brisbane v Fremantle (live FTA and Fox). Fox gain, no change FTA.
Sunday 2pm - Melbourne v Port Adelaide (no coverage). Fox loss. No change FTA.
Sunday 5pm - Richmond v Geelong (live FTA). FTA gain, Fox loss 11pm 2-hour replay.
Summary - Twice this round, Fox gains parallel coverage of FTA games, but lose 2 games which are now uncovered. Fox gains live Friday night and Sunday twilight, while FTA's only change is loss of late Sunday replay.

[hammo]

I've had time to look at the plans in more detail now and I'm ecstatic.

Yes, I have Foxtel, but this will mean access to 7 possibly 8 live games a round.

The Friday and Saturday nights are the big ones. People in Melbourne can't appreciate how diabolical it's been up here until now but this deal goes a long way to correcting the imbalance.

Live Friday night matches on Foxtel are the best Sydneysiders will ever get. FTA will never show games in this timeslot, so its a victory for promoting the game, not a setback or 'backslide' whatever that is.

[CureTheSane]

Originally posted by Old Royboy
Whilst I can sympathise with Melbourne based fans who will miss out on swans FTA, it really gets down to how much you love your footy and the Swans. Sixty bucks a month is chicken feed ? anybody who owns a computer and has an internet account can afford it. I suggest that if the Swans are really important to you, then you will cough up. I know when cable arrived in the (then) footy starved Sydney I cut the Optus salesman?s pitch short with ?where do I sign?. Sydney girl Mrs ORB thought I was a lunatic, she?s probably right, but after 25 odd years in the footy desert I lapped up C7 up like a parched Bedouin at an oasis.

Whining and moaning will achieve nothing. Pay TV is now a fact of life. Those who refuse to subscribe on principle don?t really care that much about their footy. That is their choice.

I don't want my kids to watch more TV than they already do.
Exposing them to Cartoon Network etc is just stupid when we have to already restrict free to air Tv time, game boy time, playstation time and computer time.

Also I don't want it.
The only reason I'd get pay TV is for the footy, and I shouldn't have to get it for that.

[CureTheSane]

Originally posted by giant
Not that I don't feel your pain, but in some ways, I'm a bit shocked that Melbourne Swans fans have enjoyed as many live swans games as they suggest - surely Hawks fans in Adelaide or Crows fans in Perth don't get to see too many of their games live?

And I am shocked that games played in Sydney are televised live or delayed into Sydney.
Where is the motivation to go to the game for many people?

I'll be @@@@@@ if an MCG sunday game is not sold out and televised into Melbourne when the Swans are playing and the game is not shown.

[CureTheSane]

Originally posted by robbieando
2 of our 1pm Sunday games will shown into Melbourne on Replay by Channel 7 at 10.30pm Sunday in full (both of the games from Canberra). So Swans fans in Melbourne will miss FTA coverage of 5 of the 7 Sunday 1pm games.

And you know what?
Show them at 2am
I'll avoid the scores all day, tape them and watch them in the morning.

Or I can listen on radio and then review the game with vision.

[ROK Lobster]

Originally posted by CureTheSane
I don't want my kids to watch more TV than they already do.
Exposing them to Cartoon Network etc is just stupid when we have to already restrict free to air Tv time, game boy time, playstation time and computer time.

Also I don't want it.
The only reason I'd get pay TV is for the footy, and I shouldn't have to get it for that.

Yep.

And by the way, I do think that Melbourne based Swans fans are big losers. Except for Scott - he's huge!

[SimonH]

Originally posted by hammo
I've had time to look at the plans in more detail now and I'm ecstatic.

Yes, I have Foxtel, but this will mean access to 7 possibly 8 live games a round.

The Friday and Saturday nights are the big ones. People in Melbourne can't appreciate how diabolical it's been up here until now but this deal goes a long way to correcting the imbalance.

Live Friday night matches on Foxtel are the best Sydneysiders will ever get. FTA will never show games in this timeslot, so its a victory for promoting the game, not a setback or 'backslide' whatever that is.

It's a shame that everything seems to turn into a FTA v Pay battle. I'm not interested in TV in its various forms for its own sake; I'm only interested in it so far as it's relevant to the game.

For those who have access to pay TV, I don't know why they would be awaiting this announcement with bated breath, or hailing it: ever since Ch 7/10 won the rights, it was guaranteed that there would be near-blanket and near-live coverage across one format or the other. The only variable, and therefore the only interest in the deal, was how much would be on FTA.

Never any doubt that Ch7/10 wouldn't broadcast Friday night live into Sydney. However, superior alternatives to 11:30pm in descending order would have been SBS, a 9:30 or 10:00pm Ch7/10 broadcast, Ch 31, or at least 10:30pm commercial for gawd's sake.

I'm less interested in whether any individual person gets a better or worse deal as a result of this; I'm more interested in the coverage for the general good of the game in Sydney. Which is measured by viewers in tens or hundreds of thousands, not by whether any one person or cluster of a few people believe it's a good thing. I'm yet to see any argument that live PTV coverage would be better for the game (in terms of increasing net viewership) than delayed-but-when-most-people-are-still-awake FTA.

This summary of ratings confirms that PTV's net prime-time viewership is at about the same level as ABC. Then it gets shredded among 40+ stations so that the highest-rating individual Fox station (including sports) makes SBS look like a swaggering ratings behemoth. Sure, it can peak up to 200,000+ nationally for the biggest events; but that just confirms what a niche platform it is, when FTA can peak at up to 3 million+.

PTV is not the future for growing a mass-market sport. Certainly not until subscriber numbers are more than double from what they are now; and that's at least a decade away.

[goswannie14]

Originally posted by SimonH
It's a shame that everything seems to turn into a FTA v Pay battle. I'm not interested in TV in its various forms for its own sake; I'm only interested in it so far as it's relevant to the game.

For those who have access to pay TV, I don't know why they would be awaiting this announcement with bated breath, or hailing it: ever since Ch 7/10 won the rights, it was guaranteed that there would be near-blanket and near-live coverage across one format or the other. The only variable, and therefore the only interest in the deal, was how much would be on FTA.

Never any doubt that Ch7/10 wouldn't broadcast Friday night live into Sydney. However, superior alternatives to 11:30pm in descending order would have been SBS, a 9:30 or 10:00pm Ch7/10 broadcast, Ch 31, or at least 10:30pm commercial for gawd's sake.

I'm less interested in whether any individual person gets a better or worse deal as a result of this; I'm more interested in the coverage for the general good of the game in Sydney. Which is measured by viewers in tens or hundreds of thousands, not by whether any one person or cluster of a few people believe it's a good thing. I'm yet to see any argument that live PTV coverage would be better for the game (in terms of increasing net viewership) than delayed-but-when-most-people-are-still-awake FTA.

This summary of ratings confirms that PTV's net prime-time viewership is at about the same level as ABC. Then it gets shredded among 40+ stations so that the highest-rating individual Fox station (including sports) makes SBS look like a swaggering ratings behemoth. Sure, it can peak up to 200,000+ nationally for the biggest events; but that just confirms what a niche platform it is, when FTA can peak at up to 3 million+.

PTV is not the future for growing a mass-market sport. Certainly not until subscriber numbers are more than double from what they are now; and that's at least a decade away.

Thank you Simon, exactly what I have been trying to say all along.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by SimonH
For those who have access to pay TV, I don't know why they would be awaiting this announcement with bated breath, or hailing it: ever since Ch 7/10 won the rights, it was guaranteed that there would be near-blanket and near-live coverage across one format or the other. The only variable, and therefore the only interest in the deal, was how much would be on FTA.

Because it depended on the time slots and on which FTA channels.

I couldn't give a flying toss about what is good for the game. That's what the AFL administrators are paid to determine. I just want an outcome that is good for people I know.